Zetas News

An alleged front man for fugitive Veracruz Gov. Javier Duarte has acquired a string of properties in a suburb of Houston, Texas, offering a further demonstration of the importance of the United States in laundering the proceeds of criminal activity in Mexico.

An investigation by Spanish authorities has uncovered an alleged cocaine trafficking network headed by a Mexican citizen linked to several different drug cartels, shedding light on the "franchise model" Mexican crime groups use to traffic drugs to Europe.

Criminal groups and corrupt officials are the main beneficiaries of a US inspired shift in Mexico's policy that is endangering migrants, according to a new report, and the recent US decision to allow more Central American immigrants refugee status will do little to protect them from abuse south of the Rio Grande.

Authorities in Mexico continue to focus on hunting down the heads of the country's most prominent cartels, pursuing a kingpin strategy that will probably do little to cure a dire security situation given the the nation's increasingly fragmented organized crime landscape.

Zetas Profile

Beginning as a group of Special Forces deserters at the service of the Gulf Cartel, the Zetas would go on to become one of the most powerful and feared cartels in Mexico before infighting and the loss of leaders began their decline.

An alleged front man for fugitive Veracruz Gov. Javier Duarte has acquired a string of properties in a suburb of Houston, Texas, offering a further demonstration of the importance of the United States in laundering the proceeds of criminal activity in Mexico.

An investigation by Spanish authorities has uncovered an alleged cocaine trafficking network headed by a Mexican citizen linked to several different drug cartels, shedding light on the "franchise model" Mexican crime groups use to traffic drugs to Europe.

Criminal groups and corrupt officials are the main beneficiaries of a US inspired shift in Mexico's policy that is endangering migrants, according to a new report, and the recent US decision to allow more Central American immigrants refugee status will do little to protect them from abuse south of the Rio Grande.

Authorities in Mexico continue to focus on hunting down the heads of the country's most prominent cartels, pursuing a kingpin strategy that will probably do little to cure a dire security situation given the the nation's increasingly fragmented organized crime landscape.

The third reporter murdered in the southern Mexico state of Veracruz this year was gunned down in front of his family despite being under police protection at the time, illustrating the dangers of working as a journalist in a hub for drug and human trafficking that is plagued by corruption-fueled violence.

A federal jury in Texas convicted a former Zetas leader of multiple crimes committed in Mexico, underscoring a broader trend of the United States prosecuting foreign suspects for crimes committed abroad.

As the trial of Zetas Cartel leader Marciano Millán Vázquez continued in San Antonio, Texas, witnesses took the stand to described how drug traffickers co-opted and controlled media outlets in Coahuila, allegedly bribed the state's governor and how Vázquez committed and ordered multiple brutal murders.

The former Zetas leader in Piedras Negras, Mexico, went on trial this week in San Antonio, Texas, on a number of charges linking him to a reign of terror the drug cartel imposed on the state of Coahuila for years.

Mexico's Zetas crime syndicate and the government forces tasked with fighting it are both likely guilty of crimes against humanity according to a new report that calls for the establishment of an international body to independently investigate atrocities and fight impunity in the country.

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Investigations

In August 2002, the guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) greeted Colombia's new president with a mortar attack that killed 14 people during his inauguration. The attack was intended as a warning to the fiercely anti-FARC newcomer. But it became the opening salvo of...

The FARC have always had a love-hate relationship with drugs. They love the money it brings, funds which have allowed them to survive and even threaten to topple the state at the end of the 1990s. They hate the corruption and stigma narcotics have also brought to...

Ricardo Mauricio Menesses Orellana liked horses, and the Pasaquina rodeo was a great opportunity to enjoy a party. He was joined at the event -- which was taking place in the heart of territory controlled by El Salvador's most powerful drug transport group, the Perrones -- by the...

On May 27, 1964 up to one thousand Colombian soldiers, backed by fighter planes and helicopters, launched an assault against less than fifty guerrillas in the tiny community of Marquetalia. The aim of the operation was to stamp out once and for all the communist threat in...

The United States -- which through its antinarcotics, judicial and police attaches was very familiar with the routes used for smuggling, and especially those used for people trafficking and understood that those traffickers are often one and the same -- greeted the new government of Elias Antonio...

In October 2012, the US Treasury Department designated the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) as a transnational criminal organization (TCO). While this assertion seems unfounded, there is one case that illustrates just why the US government is worried about the future.

If we are to believe the Colombian government, the question is not if, but rather when, an end to 50 years of civil conflict will be reached. Yet the promise of President Juan Manuel Santos that peace can be achieved before the end of 2014 is simply...

When considering the possibilities that the FARC may break apart, the Ivan Rios Bloc is a helpful case study because it is perhaps the weakest of the FARC's divisions in terms of command and control, and therefore runs the highest risk of fragmentation and criminalization.

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dedicated to the study of the principal threat to national and citizen security in Latin America and the Caribbean: organized crime. We seek to deepen and inform the debate about organized crime in the Americas by providing the general public with regular reporting, analysis and investigation on the subject and on state efforts to combat it.